Although I like to think of our decision to home educate our almost-five-year-old daughter as a proactive one, inspired by the freedom and limitless potential that learning in a loving, nurturing and unrestrictive home environment can provide, if I'm honest it was more of a reactive decision against the things we feel are wrong with the mainstream school system.

I've blogged about these issues before, but basically it is the formal, prescribed, rigid, carrot-and-stick method of teaching, particularly at such a young age, that puts us off.

We worry that the vim and vitality our daughter has so far applied to learning will be drained from her through a mixture of timetables, tests and gold stars.

However, there is another way. Steiner education is something we've looked at again and again and, in our ongoing thoughts and discussions, it is something we keep returning to.

Here is a school system where, until aged seven at least, there are no formal lessons, no homework, no gold stars, no tests. The children are free to play without their natural curiosity or imagination being stifled by numeracy or literacy lessons.

In many ways it tallies with what we hope to gain from home schooling, but with some worthy additions. A Steiner school, for a start, provides a ready-made community for both parents and children. This means regular contact with friends for our daughter, and, for us, some solidarity in choosing an alternative path.

Both of these things are achievable through home schooling, with home school groups thriving in many parts of the country, but they are not as easy or ready-made. We live in a small village, so every play date or group gathering is preceded by a fairly long drive.

Also, as home school groups are formed and run by parents, it can be difficult to reach a consensus on how they operate. This can lead to them being little more than free playtime for the children. While this unstructured social time is exactly what some parents are after, it is what we spend most of our other time doing and so we'd rather something more structured happened at the groups.

Steiner philosophy is strong on the importance of structure and "rhythm" in a young child's day, and having seen it in action – our daughter went to a Steiner playgroup – it does seem to benefit children.

It is possible to structure the home-schooling day, and many families do it, some following Steiner methods. But it is difficult to maintain this without mimicking some of the most unwanted aspects of regular schooling.

With an unstructured home-education day, as currently practised in our house, sometimes things work brilliantly and we pass the time happily engrossed in some activity or other. But sometimes it can feel a bit aimless, with the children skitting from one thing to the next all day.

Another advantage of a school is that it provides the children with some time away from us, their parents. While this aspect of mainstream education puts us off, Steiner schools are virtually part-time in the early years, so there is a better balance of home time and school time.

So why aren't we doing it? Well, for a start our nearest Steiner school has no places. Then there is the cost – Steiner schools are private schools. And finally, we have some concerns about how Steiner education is delivered after age seven - it eventually becomes a set curriculum just like in a normal school.

So for now we'll just continue to think about it. But it keeps returning, rearing its head, promising a friendly, easier alternative without all the damaging aspects of normal school, at a moderate financial cost. What should we do?